


i need an easy friend (i do)

by scenedenial



Category: Honey Boy (2019)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationship, Gen, Slice of Life, second person POV—shy girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23834224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scenedenial/pseuds/scenedenial
Summary: You let him take you home when his tears stop.
Relationships: Otis Lort & Shy Girl, Otis Lort/Shy Girl
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	i need an easy friend (i do)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from nirvana’s ‘about a girl’

The first real thing you learn about him is which brand of cigarettes he smokes. He barely looks old enough to walk himself to school, but you were rolling joints for mom at twelve so you don’t judge. Of course you don’t. 

He buys you a cola in the cramped, stuffy laundry room. His hand is small and very hot when it brushes yours. He looks taken aback when you smile at him and you wonder. 

Because you hear the yelling. 

Not like yelling is uncommon in the park; it’s as much a part of the background noise as the engines on the highway or the rattle of the generators. 

Just that usually Otis is silent.

His father, who you don’t like, calls him _honey boy_ and between the blonde curls and the sugary laugh you understand it. Even better so with the lighter throwing orange shadow over his face in the dusk on his porch. _O-tis._ You like the way it feels in your mouth, round and even. 

You wave at him through the window while you sit still on your front stoop, sweating in the heat of the SoCal summer.

You find him in the junkyard on the night where the blows hitting inside the room echo through paper-thin walls and into the base of your skull. You wipe the snot off his face with your fingers. His chest is thin and his shaky breaths rattle in your ear. 

You let him take you home when his tears stop. 

His place looks like your place, and that’s the beauty of the park; you could navigate this room in the dark, could find all the light switches and power outlets with your eyes closed. The two twin bed are against a different wall and the coffee grounds that sit atop the microwave are a different brand than Deb buys but apart from that you could be home. 

Otis turns on the lamp that sits on the nightstand. He wears a thin silver chain that glints against the skin of his neck. 

You are wearing a pink lace bra and thigh-high boots. The only place he looks is your face, his own eyes wide and plaintive and without a hint of hardness or irony in them.

(He doesn’t know what you’ve done. Does he? Doesn’t know about the nights spent on your knees or the way that small bills scratch against bare skin. You _hope_ he doesn’t know.) 

“Do you want something to eat?” He asks you in the soft, scratchy voice of a kid who has just finished throwing a tantrum. You shake your head. “We don’t got much anyways.” His smile is apologetic, self-deprecating. 

You put a hand on his face. His skin burns. 

You let him lay next to you on the twin bed. You hold his head against your shoulder and try to transmute every memory of this world as something beautiful into his curly head. His breath is hot on your neck.

You pick up his sweating hand and move it away from your breasts. His eyes close.

When he sits up and digs in the back pocket of his jeans for a fold of crumpled bills it is all you can do to get out the door before the sobs work their way up your throat.

—

You go swimming with him, wearing underwear and an old t-shirt. You dive down to the scummy bottom of the pool and push two fingers to his lips when he meets your eyes through the wobbly chlorinated water and tries to push forward to kiss you.

You pull him into a hug instead, your buoyant human bodies rising to the surface in tandem. 

You sleep next to him, his sharp chin pressing against your shoulder. He cries out in his sleep and you pet his hair, shush him until his breaths come normal again. 

You know his father is out somewhere behaving like a man who isn’t responsible for a fragile fucking child who smells like tobacco and chlorine and who eats like a wild, hungry dog. You fold him into your arms and play the role. 

He sighs and grabs a fistful of your t-shirt in a small, warm hand. 

You close your eyes against the fluorescent dark and ache for him.


End file.
